HOW ‘INTERNATIONALISED’ IS YOUR UNIVERSITY?
Moving beyond structural indicators towards social integration
Briefing paper: Going Global Event 2015, London, UK
Helen Spencer-Oatey and Daniel Dauber
Centre for Applied Linguistics
Authors
Dr. Daniel Dauber
Dr. Daniel Dauber is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Applied Linguistics at the
University of Warwick. His major research interests and teaching responsibilities include
International Business, Cross-Cultural Management and Organisational Behaviour. Dr.
Dauber’s current research focuses on Internationalisation of Higher Education Institutions,
group/team work, and organisational culture change and dynamics. He is also cofounder of the ‘Organisational Coherence and Trajectory’ (OCT) Project, which focuses
on developing a generic model of organisational culture, which can be applied across
research disciplines. Since 2010, he is Executive Editor of the ‘European Journal of CrossCultural Competence and Management’ (EJCCM). d.dauber@warwick.ac.uk
Professor Helen Spencer-Oatey
Helen Spencer-Oatey is Director of the Centre for Applied Linguistics at the University
of Warwick. Her educational background is in both psychology and linguistics, and
throughout her career she has worked at the interface of the two disciplines. She joined
the University of Warwick in 2007, Her first teaching experience was in Hong Kong, where
she taught English language to sixth-form (pre-university) students, as well as to adults
taking evening classes at a British Council language school. Later she spent seven years
working at Shanghai Jiaotong University, training teachers of English language from
colleges and universities in the eastern region of China. After completing her PhD at
Lancaster University, she lectured at the University of Luton (as it was then) for 10 years
and while there, established the first MA in Intercultural Communication in the UK. In
2002 she started managing the major inter-governmental eChina-UK Programme on
behalf of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, and found it a transforming
experience. She joined the University of Warwick in September 2007, where she is
Director of the Centre for Applied Linguistics. helen.spencer-oatey@warwick.ac.uk
Executive Summary
Universities all over the world are seeking to ‘internationalise’ their ‘business’.
Driven by risk diversification, organic growth, reputation and demands by
stakeholders, such as future employers, higher education institutions (HEIs)
face a competitive environment that increasingly requires them to operate
very strategically towards multiple, sometimes conflicting, goals. This is also
reflected in different global university league tables that aim to capture
the degree of ‘internationalisation’ of the institutions. Yet in this race for
international students/staff/partners, less attention seems to have been paid
to the social viability of internationalising a university’s community. In this
paper we challenge the adequacy with which current benchmarking data
on internationalisation provide the information that HEI policy makers need
for designing a strategy that meets the goals they identify. We call for the
inclusion of an ‘intercultural’ component, which takes into account the social
complexity of truly internationalised university communities.
4
“Current
benchmarking is
all structural”
Current benchmarking of internationalisation:
Bi-polar structural diversity
A number of organisations include internationalisation in their benchmarking of
worldwide universities, the most well-known of which are Times Higher Education (THE)
rankings, QS World rankings, and U-Multirank.1 The parameters that these organisations
use to measure internationalisation are shown in Table 1 and, as can be seen, they are all
exclusively structural in nature.
Parameters
Organisation
THE
QS
U-Multirank
Composition: international students
Composition: international staff
Composition: international diversity
Incoming & Outgoing student mobility
International student support (religious facilities)
International joint publications
Table 1: Parameters for ranking internationalisation
They focus on different countable measures, most notably national composition of
students and staff as well as in the numbers engaged in international movement and
research. Clearly there are significant differences between the systems in the number,
range and precise definitions of the parameters used (e.g. THE uses ratio of international
to domestic students, while QS gives full marks if 20% or more of an institution’s students
are international), but they are all united in their exclusive use of frequency and/or
compositional counts. Also, most of the time, the definition of ‘diversity’ has been reduced
to a bi-polar category: proportion of home vs. international students, with the result that
degree of ‘diversity’ cannot directly be deduced from these statistics. This, however,
can impact substantially on the social reality of students’ study experiences, such as, for
example, if there are large dominant national groups of students on campus. The QS
benchmark is a notable exception to this. However, it uses an arbitrary cut-off point of
50 different countries.
Undoubtedly, the above mentioned parameters are key indicators of an HEI’s ability
to lay the foundation for internationalisation and as such are important pre-requisites
for a university’s international outlook and growth. They are included, therefore, in many
universities’ internationalisation strategies. For example, the University of Stirling, to which
QS allocates the maximum number of 5 stars for its level of internationalisation, includes
the following strategic goals in its 2014-19 Internationalisation Strategy2:
To grow international student numbers by 30% during the life of this strategy, with
a focus on diversification across programmes and across nationalities.
To increase undergraduate student participation in international exchanges from 4%
to 15% of the undergraduate population through developing distinctive programmes
and curricula and extending the number and range of overseas exchanges available.
Other structural features are also included in many strategies as internationalisation
goals, viz. overseas partnerships and an overseas branch campus. These are listed as
common KPIs for internationalisation in HESA’s internationalisation report1 and they are
clearly important elements. Partnerships are another structural measure of diversity and
yet, interestingly, they are not included as parameters of internationalisation in the major
ranking systems.
1 For a full list, see the HESA report on international benchmarking, available at http://benchmarking.hesa.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/HESA_
International_Benchmarking_report.pdf
2 http://www.foi.stir.ac.uk/documents/Internationalisation-Strategy-2014-19.pdf
5
“Structural
benchmarking
provides limited
insights”
In view of the above, it appears that the emphasis on achieving increased structural
diversity in order for HEIs to demonstrate their greater levels of internationalisation fails
to give adequate acknowledgement to the social aspects of their efforts. Assuming that
HEIs also aim to improve life on campus through internationalisation and make it a much
more enriching experience for everyone (students and staff alike), we identify three
fundamentally flawed assumptions about parameters of HEI ‘internationalisation’:
Structural internationalisation (automatically) improves students’ satisfaction.
Structural internationalisation (automatically) yields an integrated student community.
Structural internationalisation (automatically) leads to global skills.
Structural Internationalisation ≠ Student Satisfaction
How satisfactory, then, are these structural measures of diversity as indicators of level of
internationalisation? What ‘international benefits’ are they associated with?
Many universities refer to the benefits of having a diverse composition of students and
staff in terms of ‘enrichment’. For example, the University of Bristol3 identifies the following
as two of its prime reasons for pursuing internationalisation:
It means we have a diverse student body from multiple cultures and societies, which
enriches our intellectual environment;
It means academic staff come to us from all over the world and their different
intellectual approaches, as well as their different cultures, again enrich the University.
These are clearly valid and important aspirations, but do students necessarily perceive
things in these ways? Statistical analyses suggest that for students in the UK the picture
is more mixed and/or complex.
n = 26 universities
THE Student
experience
(overall score)
THE Student
experience
(good social
life)
NSS Teaching
satisfaction
Non-UK/Total Students
Pearson r
Sig. (2-tailed)
-0.538**
0.005
-0.754**
0.000
-0.330
0.099
Non-UK/Total Staff
Pearson r
Sig. (2-tailed)
-0.142
0.480
-0.410*
0.034
-0.274
0.176
THE Ranking 2013/14 (international
outlook)
Pearson r
Sig. (2-tailed)
-0.267
0.188
-0.676**
0.000
-0.245
0.227
Table 2: Correlations between diversity, student experience and international outlook in UK universities
As can be seen from Table 2, the greater the proportion of non-UK students in the total
student population, the less positive the student experience ratings are. This is even
more evident when looking at one of the sub-categories of the THE student experience
rating4: Good social life (r= -0.754**). These correlations could be interpreted as
indicating that growth in ‘structural internationalisation’ has a negative impact on student
satisfaction, and especially social integration (see also the negative correlation between
‘international outlook’ and ‘good social life’, r=-0.676**). Yet that may be too simplistic
an interpretation. In fact, as we show below, in the case of the University of Warwick, many
students are highly appreciative of the opportunity to be exposed to different facets of
‘internationalisation’. It matches their expectations as well as their goals of being part of
an internationalised university and it also offers them the opportunity to develop the skills
needed for working in a multicultural workplace. So we would argue that these social
aspects of internationalisation need addressing and benchmarking in addition to the
aforementioned structural factors.
3 http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/university/migrated/documents/internationalisation.pdf
4 Student experience ratings are based on the THE Student Experience Survey 2014 and include responses from both UK and international students. Available at http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/times-higher-education-student-experience-survey-2014/2013333.article
6
“Global education
should lead
to integrated
communities”
Structural Internationalisation ≠ Integrated community
A recent British Council report5 makes the following extremely important point:
“Simply having a diverse student body does not mean the education or even the campus
is global in nature. What comes as an essential part of a global education is the inclusion
of international students in communities and classes. Integration of all students is an
elemental factor in the expanding concept of internationalisation.”
Unfortunately a range of reports have repeatedly argued that there are low levels of
intermixing in further and higher education communities6. So while having a diverse
population is an important prerequisite for reaping benefits, it does not in itself ensure
that people will interact meaningfully with each other. This could explain the correlations
in Table 2, and is further illustrated by Research Insight 1.
Research Insight 1: Does diversity aid intercultural interaction?
Groeppel-Klein, Germelmann and Glaum7 carried out a longitudinal study at
a ‘border university’ near the German-Polish border. They explain that border
universities attract students from two or more neighbouring countries and have
typically been established to promote intercultural understanding between the
peoples of these neighbouring nations. The authors conducted a 7-year longitudinal
study among the German and Polish students of their selected border university, and
found that contrary to the establishment aims, interaction between members of the
two groups did not increase over the period. They also found that the key to levels
of interaction was not nationality but ‘cultural openness’: “Students with a high level
of individual cultural openness reported significantly higher levels of interaction
than students with a low level of cultural openness.”
5 British Council (2014) Integration of international students. A UK Perspective. Available at http://www.britishcouncil.org/education/ihe/knowledge-centre/
student-mobility/report-integration-international-students
6 E.g. NUS: “Building an Internationalised Students’ Union” Available at http://www.nusconnect.org.uk/internationalisation/resources/; ECU: “Internationalising equality, equalising internationalisation” Available at http://www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/internationalising-equality-equalising/
7 Groeppel-Klien, A., Germelmann, C.C. and Galum, M. (2010) Intercultural interaction needs more than mere exposure:Searching for drivers of student
interaction at border universities. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 34, 263-267.
7
“Institutional
support for
community
integration is vital”
Since the mere existence of a diversified student body in itself does not necessarily lead
to interaction, it is important to consider what conditions can facilitate or hamper helpful
interaction and for this, Contact Theory may offer us some insights.
Contact theory was first put forward by the social psychologist, Gordon Allport8, in the
1950s, and since then it has generated a massive amount of ongoing research. The theory
attempts to describe and explain what happens when members of different cultural
groups come into contact. It argues that generally speaking, contact has a positive effect,
especially in terms of reducing prejudice. However, it also argues that different contact
conditions can affect the impact of contact. Some conditions are particularly effective in
promoting positive outcomes, while others have the opposite effects. Allport proposed
that the following conditions are particularly effective in reducing prejudice:
equal status
common goals
institutional support
perception of similarity between the two groups.
Clearly, universities have a major role to play in providing institutional support through
both establishing goals and enabling support (financially and procedurally) for achieving
them. Many are committed to doing this and numerous initiatives are being undertaken
at a wide range of institutions. For example, the University of Sheffield9 has identified
the establishment of “a truly international University community” as one of its key aims
and has listed a number of strategies for achieving it, such as “Providing more social and
extra-curricular activities that bring home and international students together; providing
all students with an opportunity to develop/acquire a second language (including the
opportunity for international students to develop their English language); internationalising
our curricula so that all students have exposure to an international learning experience
and all students understand their subject in an international context”. Case study examples
of practical ways of implementing these strategies can be found in a recent report on
the promotion of integration on campus10. In addition, a large number of resources on
intercultural competence and tools for helping achieve it are available on the Global PAD
website11.
While it is important to grasp the big picture of HE in the UK, it is even more important
to understand the social dynamics on each university campus. Recent research at
the University of Warwick, using data from i-Graduate’s Student Barometer (SB) and
International Student Barometer (ISB) (with a sample of 2000 students which was collected
in the summer of 2014), underlines the importance of diversity in friendships in order for
students to feel part of the university community.
8 Allport, G. W. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
9 http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.206647!/file/International-strategy-Senate-approved.pdf
10 Spencer-Oatey, H., Dauber, D. & Williams, S. (2014). Promoting integration on campus: Principles, practice and issues for further exploration. Report commissioned by UKCISA and available at: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/globalpeople/integration/
11 http://www.warwick.ac.uk/globalpadintercultural
8
“All types of
friendship are
important”
I feel part of the
University/Institution community
Making friends from my home country12
Pearson r
Sig. (2-tailed)
.281**
0.000
Making friends from this home country (i.e. UK)
Pearson r
Sig. (2-tailed)
.369**
0.000
Making friends from other countries
Pearson r
Sig. (2-tailed)
.395**
0.000
Table 3: Correlations between friendship and sense of belonging to the university community
As can be seen from Table 3 (and in line with early research by Stephen Bochner13),
all three types of friendships – co-national, host country and other international – are
important for home as well as international students to feel a sense of belonging to the
university community. Considering the level of satisfaction that students have with making
friends at Warwick, they appear to be (a) generally very satisfied (Figure 1) and (b) report
that they have friends from different countries (Figure 2). Nevertheless, it also appears that
international students find it considerably harder to make friends with students from the
host country (i.e. UK in this case).
Making friends
from my home
country
Making friends from
this country
Making friends from
other countries
Fig. 1: The proportion of students (n = 2000) who are satisfied with making
friends from different places.
12 This question was not included for UK students, thus only reflects international students’ perception.
13 E.g. Bochner, S. (1977). Friendship patterns of overseas students: A functional model. International Journal of Psychology, 12(4), 277-294.
9
“Is socialisation
across cultures
difficult?”
Within my friendship groups,
there are people from different
countries.
Fig. 2: The proportion of students
(n = 2000) who agreed with the
following statement: “Within my
friendship groups there are people
from different countries.”
I find it difficult to socialise
with people who are from
different countries
Fig. 3: The proportion of students
(n = 2000) who agreed with the
following statement: “I find it
difficult to socialise with people
who are from different countries.”
Yet not all find it equally easy to make such friendships. As can be seen from Figure 3,
there were differences across regional clusters in the degree of difficulty they perceived
in making friends with people from different countries, and these were statistically
significant. Although the proportion perceiving it to be difficult was less than 50% for all
regional clusters, Chinese students found it noticeably more difficult than other regional
clusters, and research is needed into why this might be the case14.
Some recent European research indicates that it is the quality of interaction that is
of crucial importance (see Research Insight 2), and this underlines the importance of
facilitating high quality interaction.
Research Insight 2: Does diversity in class necessarily promote
positive relations among different ethnocultural groups?
A Belgian study by Dejaeghere, Hooghe and Claes15 investigated whether diversity
in class had an impact on students’ ethnocentrism. The researchers conducted a
two-year study with nearly 3000 late-adolescent students at schools across Belgium,
comparing classes with high diversity of pupils with those with low diversity. They
found that level of diversity did not predict intercultural understanding – the key factor
was quality of relations. They therefore drew the following conclusion: “Schools where
there is a high level of diversity offer good opportunities to counter ethnocentrism
according to our analysis, but this has to be framed within a positive intergroup
climate. If schools or education systems want to develop a policy aimed at reducing
ethnic prejudice, it is crucial therefore to try to influence the quality of the interaction
between the various ethnic and cultural groups at school.”
14 Chinese were treated as a separate group because it is the largest international student group on campus and were also the most frequently mentioned group in comments.
15 Dejaeghere, Y., Hooghe, M. and Claes, E. (2012) Do ethnically diverse schools reduce ethnocentrism? A two-year panel study among majority group late adolescents in Belgian schools. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36, 108-117
10
“Employers are
seeking ‘global
skills’ in their new
employees”
Structural Internationalisation ≠ ‘Global skills’
While integration is an important characteristic of successful internationalisation, high
quality interaction is not simply an end in itself. It is often closely associated with the
development of ‘global skills’ (more formally known as intercultural competence) –
qualities that many employers are now seeking/demanding/expecting in their new
employees. Several recent reports have drawn attention to these needs, as illustrated
in Table 4.
Global Graduates. Global
graduates into global leaders,
Diamond et al. on behalf of agr,
CIHE, & CFE (2011)
Available at: http://www.ncub.
co.uk/reports/global-graduatesinto-global-leaders.html
Education and Skills Survey (2012)
Top 10 skills sought by 12 leading employers collectively
representing 3500+ graduate recruits:
1. A ability to work collaboratively with teams of people from
a range of backgrounds and countries;
2. Excellent communication skills: both speaking and listening;
3. A high degree of drive and resilience;
4. An ability to embrace multiple perspectives and challenge
thinking;
5. A capacity to develop new skills and behaviours according
to role requirements;
6. A high degree of self-awareness;
7. An ability to negotiate and influence clients across the globe
from different cultures;
8. An ability to form professional, global networks;
9. An openness to and respect for a range of perspectives from
around the world;
10. Multicultural learning agility (e.g. ability to learn in any culture or
environment).
542 employers collectively employing around 1.6 m people:
•
Out of 13 employability skills, employers were least satisfied
with employees’ skills in: Foreign Languages + Cultural
Awareness
Available at http://www.cbi.org.uk/
media/1514978/cbi_education_
and_skills_survey_2012.pdf
Competing across Borders. How
cultural & communication barriers
affect business. , Economist
Intelligence Unit (2013)
572 executives:
•
Expect prospective employees to be fluent in key foreign
languages.
•
Misunderstandings rooted in cultural differences greatest
obstacle to productive cross-border collaboration.
Available at http://www.
economistinsights.com/countriestrade-investment/analysis/
competing-across-borders
HR managers working for 367 large employers in 9 countries:
•
Intercultural skills are highly valued
•
Intercultural skills bring strong business benefits and mitigate
Culture at Work. The value of interrisks
cultural skills in the workplace,
British Council (2013)
Available at http://www.
britishcouncil.org/organisation/
publications/culture-workintercultural-skills-workplace
Table 4: ‘Global skills’ required by employers, according to recent reports
11
“Experience of
mixed nationality
group work
is particularly
important”
My experiences during my
degree programme are
helping me develop the
skills needed for working
effectively in international
contexts.
The outcomes from these large-scale studies reflect the views of over 1400 employers
and it is clear from them that communication skills, especially in multicultural contexts,
consistently outrank other, presumably important outcomes of studying at an HEI, e.g.
technical expertise.
According to the EAIE Barometer16, preparing students for a global world was identified
as the second most important reason for a university to internationalise, and this is often
referred to in university internationalisation strategies. For instance, the University of
Glasgow17 identifies the following goal in its internationalisation strategy: To enhance the
student experience at Glasgow by offering a culturally diverse learning environment that
prepares students for global employment and citizenship.
However, this raises some fundamental questions for benchmarking internationalisation,
including how we can foster such ‘global graduate’ skills and whether university degree
programmes are helping significantly to nurture them.
Recent research at the University of Warwick using data from i-Graduate’s International
Student Barometer data throws some light on these questions. As can be seen from
Figure 4, most students felt their experiences during their degree programme were
helping them develop the skills needed for working effectively in international contexts.
However, there were some significant differences across the regional clusters, with UK
students agreeing significantly less strongly than EEA students.
In terms of the impact of different elements of their university experiences, correlation
analyses reveal that experience of both mixed nationality friendships and mixed
nationality group work are positively associated with students’ perceptions that they
are developing the skills needed for working effectively in international contexts and
these associations are statistically significant (see Table 5). This further corroborates our
assertion that while student composition is important, enabling students to build positive
social bonds (in line with recent European research – see Research Insights above) with
their peers is equally important and should be of similar priority for HE policy makers.
Degree programme experiences have helped develop ‘global skills’
Has friends of different
nationalities
Fig. 4: The proportion of
students (n = 2000) who agreed
with the following statement:
“My experiences during my
degree programme are helping
me develop the skills needed
for working effectively in
international contexts.”
Mixed nationality group work
has been enriching
UK
EEA (excl. UK)
CHN
Other Intl
.318**
.380**
.373**
.337**
UK
EEA (excl. UK)
CHN
Other Intl
.483**
.456**
.541**
.452**
Table 5: Correlations between (a) experiences of mixed nationality friendships and
group work and (b) perceptions that ‘global skills’ are being fostered in their degree
programme
In some respects these results are not surprising, as it has been widely assumed that
friendships with people from different countries will help foster ‘global skills’. Many
universities, therefore, have developed initiatives to help promote such diversity in
friendships, some case study examples of which can be found in Warwick’s recent report
on the promotion of integration on campus. However, it is interesting to note that the
correlations between the development of ‘global skills’ and an enriching experience
of mixed nationality group work are even stronger than between the development of
‘global skills’ and experience of mixed national friendships. Finally, it is noteworthy that
these relationships appear to exist irrespective of the cultural background of the students.
Both elements, making friends and mixed national group work experiences, contribute
significantly to students’ perceptions of their development of global skills, at least at the
University of Warwick.
16 http://www.eaie.org/home/in-the-field/barometer.html
17 http://www.gla.ac.uk/about/internationalisation/internatatgla/internationalisationstrategy/
12
“Careful facilitation
of group work is
vital”
Mixed nationality group work is an aspect of internationalisation that is relatively rarely
mentioned in internationalisation strategies, and yet the findings here indicate that it
plays an important role, at least in students’ eyes. Previous research18 has found that there
are major challenges associated with it and that careful facilitation is needed for the
enrichment benefits to emerge. We would argue that universities need to start prioritising
this more, especially since the ability to work in multicultural teams has been identified by
employers as the top skill they are looking for, according to at least one report (see Table
4, agr, CIHE, CFE report).
Benchmarking of Internationalisation:
Moving beyond structural parameters
A European funded project, IMPI (Indicators for Mapping and Profiling Internationalisation,
2009–2012)19, has drawn up a detailed set of indicators that institutions can use to assess
their level of internationalisation. With regard to preparing students for life and work in
an intercultural and globalising world, they have developed the set of indicators shown
in Table 6.
Goal dimension: to well-prepare students for life and work in an intercultural and globalising world
1.
Out of all students in the unit, what proportion studies abroad in a given year?
2.
Does the unit have a clearly defined strategy for internationalisation?
3.
Out of all international students in the unit in a given year, what proportion are exchange or
mobility programme students?
4.
Out of all courses offered by the unit in a given year, what is the proportion of courses taught in
a foreign language?
5.
In a given year, what proportion of the unit’s academic staff members follows an English language
course?
6.
Are all facilities provided by the unit to domestic students also available to international students?
7.
What proportion of students from the unit participates in outgoing exchange or mobility
programmes in a given year?
8.
In a given year, out of all academic staff members in the unit, what proportion are visiting staff
members from abroad?
9.
Does the unit provide a mentoring or ‘’buddy’’-system for international student support?
10. Out of all degree programmes offered by the unit in a given year, what proportion are
international joint/double/multiple degree programmes?
Table 6: IMPI internationalisation indicators relations re preparing students for a global world
18 E.g. Popov, V., Brinkman, D., Biemans, H. J. A., NMulder, M., Kuznetsove, A., & Noroozi, O. (2012). Multicultural student group work in higher education. An explorative case study on challenges as perceived by students. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 36, 302–317.
Turner, Y. (2009). “Knowing me, knowing you,” is there nothing we can do? Pedagogic challenges in using group work to create an intercultural learning space. Journal of Studies in International Education, 13(2), 240–255.
Volet, S. E., & Ang, G. (2012). Culturally mixed groups on international campuses: An opportunity for inter-cultural learning. Higher Education Research & Development, 31(1), 21-37.
19 http://www.impi-project.eu/home
13
“A truly
internationalising
university
needs to focus
on community
building”
It is excellent that such detailed work has been carried out on developing indicators
for internationalisation. Some of the indicators offer a relatively holistic picture of
internationalisation, such as the ‘clearly defined strategy of internationalisation’ as well
as ‘provide a mentoring or ‘buddy’-system’. Nevertheless, as can be seen from Table 6,
all of them are still structural in nature and, most likely, would produce ‘more of the same’
findings as current benchmarks do.
Since internationalisation is considered to be a process rather than a state of an
organisation, it is fair to say that many HEIs have begun to shape their institutions towards
a more internationalised community. By attracting students and staff from other countries
and taking initiatives to help them adjust, the internationalisation process in terms of
developing intercultural skills and an integrated community has already begun. However,
it needs to be broadened in scope to include ALL members of the community (i.e. home
as well as non-UK) and it needs to be acknowledged that current benchmarks are not yet
capturing the social/skills aspects of internationalisation.
Important though structural internationalisation can be, we would argue that those
elements on their own are inadequate and may even give a misleading impression
of students’ levels of intercultural competence or satisfaction. They need to be
supplemented by indicators that probe people’s lived experiences of cultural diversity,
such as the amount and quality of mixed nationality interaction, both in the classroom and
beyond. Items added to i-Graduate’s SB/ISB surveys by staff at the University of Warwick
have yielded valuable new insights into the interactional and community aspects of a
university’s internationalisation agenda. Such measures20 now need to be refined and
taken up by a wider audience so that more comprehensive insights can be gained into
internationalisation from a personal and professional development perspective.
While the structural context of HEIs impacts on students’ experiences, this is not what
graduating students are most likely to remember when they look back on their successful
careers. We would hope that alumni of internationalised universities will remember
those people they engaged with during their studies who were from different cultural
backgrounds and that they will have established social bonds with at least some of these
peers that continue to exist long after graduation. Therefore, the truly internationalised
HEI of the future will have to measure its success not only in terms of structural factors
or the number/proportion of international students, staff and partnerships, but also by its
ability to facilitate friendship-making and the development of those communicative skills
that employers are seeking in their new employees.
Professor Helen Spencer-Oatey
Dr Daniel Dauber
Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick
20 Further details are available from the authors
The University of Warwick
Since 2012, The University of Warwick, Warwick Students’
Union and UKCISA have organised an annual Integration
Summit with the aim of bringing universities and their
students’ unions together to collaborate around the
common theme of how best to encourage integration
between international and domestic students and how
to measure the internationalised student experience.
At Warwick, we take an innovative research-led approach
to integration by focusing on the “collaborative triangle”
of Students’ Unions, Academic Departments and
Administrative Services including the International Office.
We have then tried to embed these within our top
level University strategy under the strategic objective
to “Develop every student’s international perspective,
preparing them for an increasingly globalised society
through intercultural learning and opportunities to study
overseas”. The idea here is that if all of our students are
prepared to change and become more interculturally
competent and the institution is seen to fully endorse this
transformation, we will be much better placed to promote
meaningful and sustained dialogue between nationalities
on our campuses.
We recognise that whilst the motivation to engage in
intercultural contact has to come from within the individual
student, universities and students’ unions do have a role
to play in creating the social conditions to facilitate that
intercultural contact. Go Global is Warwick’s initiative
to encourage all our students to have an international
experience whilst they are studying and it is delivered
in partnership with the SU. This might be through
outbound activities: study abroad, overseas volunteering
opportunities such as Warwick in Africa and Warwick
Laksh, overseas internships, international undergraduate
research projects, working on Reinvention and ICUR,
our undergraduate academic journal and annual
international undergraduate research conference that
is co-produced by students at Warwick and at our strategic
partner, Monash.
We know that our graduates will be competing in a global
job market and we know that above all, employers are
all looking for excellent communicators and the ability
to work in multicultural teams (source CIHE 2011 ‘Global
Graduates into Global Leaders). We also know that
employers themselves don’t know how to assess or to
evaluate intercultural competence (source: British Council
– Culture at Work report 2013) so we need to equip our
students with not just the opportunities to develop their
global perspectives and intercultural communication skills,
but also the vocabulary to demonstrate to employers
how all of these skills and experiences are relevant in
an employment context.
We also recognise the great potential for intercultural
learning that our diverse campus offers and we promote
the ways in which one can become internationalised
at home, by learning a new language on campus,
participating in student leadership, becoming a student
mentor, volunteer, orientation helper or Go Global
Ambassador. For students participating in any of these
international opportunities, we also offer a three-stage
(before, during and after) intercultural training because
we believe that in order to achieve optimal personal
and professional learning and growth from one’s
international experiences, students need to be equipped
with observational, analytical and reflective skills about
themselves in relation to culture and cultural difference.
At Warwick, the research being carried out by our Centre
for Applied Linguistics into intercultural communicative
competence has been fundamental in informing how we
evaluate and develop the “bottom up” internationalisation
activities run by our International Office and our Students’
Union.
Claire O’Leary
Assistant Director (Student Experience), International
Office, University of Warwick
Claire O’Leary
As Head of Student Experience in the International Office at the University of Warwick,
Claire is responsible for monitoring and enhancing the international student experience
as well as internationalising the home student body. Claire also leads on Tier 4
compliance strategy and policy for the institution. She has worked in international
student support at three universities over the last 18 years. Claire has served two terms of
office on the board of the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA). She has
recently joined the European Association for International Education's expert community
leadership group, Study Abroad and Foreign Student Advisers (SAFSA). Claire is studying
part-time for a Master's in Intercultural Communication at the University of Warwick.
Going Global Volunteers
Name
Nationality
Anna Donovan
American
Carolin Debray
German
Emma Jordan
British
Essi Jussila
Finnish
Hai Ngo
Chinese
Joelle Loew
Swiss
Kyong-Mi Kim
South Korean
Lisa Bertacchini
Italian
Natasha Lee
Malaysian
Priscila Alves Niso
Brazilian
Qian Yu (Chrystal)
Chinese
Qianqian Wei (Betty)
Chinese
Qiongjun Li (Lexie)
Chinese
Thomas Greenaway
British
Tinnie Chan
Hong Kong Chinese
Xiaobin Zhu (Demi)
Chinese
Xiaozhe Cai (Sherry)
Chinese
Yohei Ito
Japanese
Polly Galis
British
The UK Council for International Student Affairs is the UK’s national advisory body
serving the interests of international students and those who work with them.
It does so through research, print and web-based publications, a national training
programme, dedicated advice lines for students and advisors, and liaison and
advocacy with institutions, agencies and government.
Its aims are to:
increase support for international education and raise awareness of its values and
benefits
promote opportunities for, and identify and work to reduce obstacles and barriers
to, greater student mobility
encourage best practice, professional development and the highest quality of
institutional support for international students throughout the education sector
UKCISA’s membership includes:
every university in the UK
a number of Students’ Unions
the majority of publicly funded higher and further education colleges which are
active internationally
a number of independent schools and private colleges and
a range of specialist and representative bodies